Nobody's Off the Hook
by A Quarter Past
Summary: The TARDIS done it: Donna Noble goes missing, and this author writes a JE-fixit. Again. COMPLETE


Author's Note: Wow, well, it looks like I forgot to post this one. It is one of the few crack!fics I have ever written that I am not ashamed of. Mostly because it actually manages to wrangle out a plot.

Note Two: I changed my pen name from **Discord in the Garden** to **A Quarter Past**. Anyone who recognizes this from lj, I assure you, no one would actually want to steal it.

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

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**Nobody's Off the Hook**

(or,_ Redemption in Five Parts_)

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i.

Time on Earth slipped by like water dripping out of a faucet.

Deceptively quick, puddling, pooling, overflowing over the edges of the basin that was meant to represent Donna Noble's life and would have represented it gladly if Donna Noble had actually had the grace to be in it.

And there it was, that silly metaphor that would make her snort on a drink or even on air if there were no edible liquids available. Leave it to someone to write that time had sprung a leak or compare her life to bad plumbing. She'd be inclined to agree with the latter - her life did seem poorly pieced together - but the former was laughable. Time didn't escape from someone and pool up and overflow in a manner that could, in the end, drown a person or ruin a rug...and even if it could, it most _definitely _wouldn't do that to her.

But Donna Noble wasn't there to snort or laugh or take stock of the fickleness of her own time-line. She wasn't much of anywhere, really, and that was the very very confusing part.

Ah, but in most instances such as this, it's always easiest (and most prudent) to tap your chin and grin at the ceiling and make a soft sound of understanding - even though you don't understand it at all, not really - and declare to anyone present - even if it is only yourself - this:

"The TARDIS done it."

ii.

The TARDIS _had _done it, but Wilfred Mott and Sylvia Noble were not so well acquainted with the Doctor's blue police box - which is a very accurate assumption to make, as they weren't very well acquainted with the Doctor either - to assume that it had. So, when their daughter and granddaughter (respectively) vanished without the typical fanfare that was her voice, they chalked it up to one of three things:

a. Drunken stumbling into a ditch, or  
b. Her brain burned itself into whatever gelatinous globs of electrons burn themselves into, or  
c. The Doctor done it.

Sylvia was quick to believe _a_, _b_ and/or _c_, but Wilfred was convinced that his granddaughter had learned in her thirty-six years of life how not to stumble into a ditch and hoped that her brain was still what raw gelatinous globs of electrons are, and so he was very very certain that all their answers rested with _c_.

After a day and a half, they called the police anyway.

The police claimed to have absolutely no records of a one, Donna Noble.

To the surprise of Torchwood...Torchwood had done _that_, even though no one there was really quite sure_why_.

Despite its actively and unabashedly random placement in the plot – it served its purpose of keeping the police away from the scene of the crime long enough for a relative lack of crime to be committed.

Which translates once more to: The TARDIS done it.

iii.

Donna _had_ stumbled into a ditch, but she hadn't done so drunkenly. At least, not in your typical sense of 'drunken.' You see, her brain _had_ tried to deep-fry itself with a lack of self-preservation that most people associated with the Doctor possess, and Sylvia wasn't entirely wrong. In the end – in a very literal way – it _was _all the Doctor's fault.

But seriously, the TARDIS had done it. Parked herself right atop the Noble's TARDIS-blue sedan without the Doctor's permission, she did. Much like a sulking dog, but without the fur, paws, teeth and sulking.

"Now, why did you go and do that?" the Doctor shouted up at her, lying unbecomingly on his back in the way that people who charge out of a door over a four foot drop do.

After a great deal of complaining, rambling and sonic-screwdriving, the Doctor realized that he wasn't the only prone form in the area and began to complain, ramble and sonic some more.

In the meantime, Donna Noble's forehead could successfully fry an egg, if put to the test.

iv.

_-This supposed to happen?_

_- Not usually, no, but I have a habit of doing things that shouldn't happen when concerning you. What's one more anamoly when added to the list?_

_-...There's a reason I always yelled at the Doctor for using the mallet on you..._

_-Consider this my token of gratitude, Donna Noble._

_-...Although, it's a bit of a tight squeeze in here, isn't it..._

_-I had to place your consciousness in the area that houses my landing algorithms. A tight fit, yes, but not as tight a fit as your brain. Which isn't so much tight as it is fatally constricting._

_-Will I ever be able to leave? Cause, no offense, but I can feel my childhood memories kicking the Second Doctor's fondness for recorder playing...and if I stay here for much longer, the Doctor's gonna find that he keeps landing on market planets on Sundays._

_-Oh, please don't tempt me to keep you here any longer than necessary. But, yes, you'll be able to leave once the Doctor realizes it would be most prudent to get you into me. If this works, I'll even be able to stop your memories from physically accosting the Doctor's._

_-Into you? We gotta work on your delivery, here._

_-Apologies, but I am a spacecraft, as you know._

_-You're right. You're right...Do I get to slap him then, instead?_

_-Donna Noble, you have my permission to do whatever it is you like to him. As soon as your mind is able to control your body once more, I shall dim the lights and turn the other way as you throttle him, if that is what you wish._

_-Nah. I want to see his face when I hit him._

_-I'll raise the lights by twenty percent, then. He's preferred them low since you have been gone._

_-Thank you. Do you promise to keep him away from my head, this time? I can't stand the thought of him taking it all away again._

_-He'll not touch you until you give him permission to._

v.

Donna had an exceptional right hook for a woman who had been, only moments before, dying of a raging fever. The Doctor was willing to give her that much as he cradled his jaw, aware that a bruise was actually - really - going to form there whether he wanted it to or not.

Not that he minded. In fact, he was too busy grinning like a loon with a concussion to care.

He was still trying to understand completely what had just happened -including why his best mate was no longer flopping about like a beached fish, a dying beached fish at that - when said best mate slipped once more into limp unconsciousness. However, this time there was a definitive - and fortunate - lack of convulsions, no burning brain, but an impressive amount of post-fever sweat...

...which he leaned forward to brush off tenderly, still trying to wrap both his hearts and mind around the miraculous recovery and return of Donna - body and soul - into his life. This did not turn out well for the Doctor, for the second his fingers brushed her temples, the Console Room gave a mighty jerk and flung him - very forcefully, it should be added - into the nearby railing.

When the Doctor's face hit the grating, he was already as unconscious as his friend.

The TARDIS done that too.


End file.
